Catching the Bad Guy (Book Two) (Janet Maple Series) (15 page)

“Place this ring upon her finger and
repeat after me: ‘With this ring I thee wed and forever pledge my devotion.’”

The groom mumbled on as he was told.

“Do you, Lisa, take Paul to be your
lawful wedded husband, to love, honor and cherish him through sickness and in
health, through times of happiness and travail, until death do you part?”

“Yes.”

“By the act of joining hands you take to
yourself the relation of husband and wife and solemnly promise to love, honor,
comfort, and cherish each other so long as you both shall live. Therefore, in
accordance with the law of New York and by virtue of the authority vested in me
by the law of New York, I pronounce you husband and wife. You came to me as two
single people and you will now leave as a married couple, united to each other
by the binding contract you have just entered. Your cares, your worries, your
pleasures and your joys, you must share with each other. The best of good
fortune to both of you.”

“Wasn’t that beautiful?” Aileen
whispered, her pudgy fingers squeezing David’s hand so tightly he barely
suppressed a yelp.

“Very,” David managed. So far he rated
his experience at the Bostoff wedding as akin to the pain of matches being
stuck into one’s eyes—not that David had ever been subjected to such a horrid
torture, but he had a vivid imagination and he feared what was to follow.

Aileen dabbed her eyes. “Aren’t you glad
we came? I have a feeling that the reception is going to be wonderful.”

“I am sure it will be,” David confirmed,
hoping the he would be spared the awkwardness of running into the groom’s
brother, Jon Bostoff.

“You may now kiss as husband and wife.”

As the justice of the peace uttered the
concluding words of the wedding ceremony, Paul Bostoff drew Lisa into his arms,
and the two locked their lips in a long, passionate kiss.

Applause and cheering erupted from the
audience. While she clapped, Janet’s eyes surveyed the back row. She was
relieved to see the blond of Muller’s hair. Not that Muller’s presence elicited
any sort of positive emotion in Janet, but she owed it to Lisa and Paul to set
things right, and Muller was the key. Whether it was the emotional rush from
the ceremony, the pent-up anger from the blatantly unjust way in which the
Bostoff Securities and Emperial case had been handled, or a combination of
both, Janet felt empowered by a surge of boldness. Who did this Muller
character think he was, anyway? Just because he wore swanky suits and dated
supermodels did not mean that he was superhuman. And the latter bit was not
even true anymore: Muller’s current date did not look anything like a
supermodel, proving that Muller was just an ordinary human being after all. An
exceptionally corrupt human being, but a human being nonetheless, one who had
to obey the law just like the rest of the mortals, and Janet would make sure
that he would not escape it. Which brought her to her next point: aside from
the fact that Lisa had arranged for Muller to be seated at the same table as
Janet and her date, Janet still did not have a plan for getting close to Muller.
She needed to talk to Laskin so that they could come up with a strategy before
the reception began.

“Shall we?” Tyler Bostoff offered his
arm to Janet.

“Thank you, Tyler.” Janet leaned on
Tyler’s arm and followed him, along with the flow of the guests who were now
headed toward the reception hall. Once they reached the front row, Janet
spotted Laskin and disengaged herself from Tyler.

“Peter,” Janet called to her date in a
hushed whisper.

“Janet! At long last! I was beginning to
think that 1 would never get to spend any time with my date.” Laskin cast an
askance glance at Tyler.

Janet ignored Laskin’s pointed remark:
now was not the time for ego stroking. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about
that. Let’s go in here.” Janet grabbed a hold of Laskin’s arm and drew him into
the guestroom that had been reserved to store the wedding gifts.

“Wow, Janet, if you were that eager to
see me, we could have arranged something sooner.”

Janet shut the door behind them.
"Look, Peter, I have to come clean. I invited you as my date because I
need your help.”

“You mean to tell me that you are not
attracted to my sexy looks or my charm and wit?”

Janet stared back at him, wondering how
she was going to work her way out of this one. Then she noticed a smile on
Laskin’s lips.

“Relax, Janet. I may be a little slow on
the uptake at times, but I’m not dumb. One doesn’t need a PhD in human behavior
to know that you and Dennis have the hots for one another, so when you asked me
to be your date I knew that romance was not your motivation. I’ve tried to get
you to tell me exactly why you needed me to be here with you, but you blew off
all my attempts to do so. And then when you finally had time to meet, something
had come up and I couldn’t make it.”

Janet blushed at her own vanity. So far,
it seemed like Laskin’s investigative instincts were much keener than her own.
“I’m sorry, Peter.”

Laskin waved his hand. “Forget it,
Janet. Now, do you want to tell me why you asked me to come with you? I suspect
it has something to do with the Bostoff case.”

How did you know? Janet merely blinked,
restraining herself from uttering the question that was on her lips. The
groom’s name was Paul Bostoff, and one did not have to be Sherlock Holmes to
figure out the rest.

“I am familiar with the case,” replied
Laskin, as though having read her thoughts. “After all, I did do all the
analytics for Walker while he romanced you in the offices of Bostoff Securities
under the pretext of an undercover assignment.”

“There was no romancing—”

“Save it, Janet. I’ve worked with Walker
long enough. Now, are you going to tell me why you asked me to be your date for
the wedding?”

Janet opened her mouth and then closed
it. There was no use trying to fool Laskin. Her embarrassment made her speak in
formal, contrived language as though she were making a statement during a
deposition. “There is concrete evidence indicating that David Muller, owner of
Emperial hedge fund, had orchestrated a market manipulation trading scheme.”

“I know about that too, Janet. While
Bostoff was guilty in accepting the trades, Muller was the mastermind behind
the operation. But then, low and behold, Muller walks away and Jon Bostoff
takes all the blame. Not to mention that our boss gets fired, and both yours
and Dennis’s careers now seem to be headed for the crapper, so you can skip the
background and cut right to the chase.”

“You never leave anything out, do you?”
Janet held her breath, wondering if Laskin also knew about her long-standing
and painful history with Alex, but to her relief Laskin remained quiet. At
least he did not know about that.

Laskin reddened. “I didn’t mean to sound
so harsh. With our new boss, all of our careers are headed for the crapper.
Now, what’s your plan? Because if you have one, I sure want to hear it. I don’t
like Kingsley any more than you do.”

“I want to get Muller,” Janet said
simply. “I thought that together we’d be able to get close to him and see what
he’s up to. You probably know this already, but the bride is a very good friend
of mine and—”

“Obviously,” Laskin interrupted. “You
are the maid of honor.”

Janet shot Laskin an irritated look.

“Sorry, I couldn’t help that one.
Spending too much time behind the desk makes me snippy.”

“I can see that. So, a few weeks ago,
Lisa told me that David Muller had accepted his invitation to the wedding.”

By the surprised expression on Laskin’s
face, Janet was glad to see that the man did not know everything after all.

“The Bostoffs invited Muller to the
wedding? I would think that they would hate his guts.”

“And they do. Lisa was just as surprised
as you are. Muller’s name was on the original list of the invitees, but somehow
it was never taken off and an invite was sent to him. Now, I have no idea why,
but not only did he accept, but he has actually showed up.”

“Muller is here?”

“Yes. He was a few minutes late to the
ceremony, so he sat in the last row.” Janet opened her purse. “Here, this will
help. This is a picture of him from a magazine article published before the
investigation. I think he’s keeping a lower profile now.”

Laskin took the paper from Janet’s hand.
“You’re not supposed to carry the mark’s picture with you.”

“We’re not spies, Peter. I’m pretty sure
that I didn’t breach any security codes by carrying an article about Muller in
my purse.” Janet snatched the paper back from Laskin and put it in her purse.
“Did you memorize his face?”

“I sure did. Now, what’s your plan?”

“Lisa has arranged it so that we are
sitting at the same table with Muller and his date. We’ll have a few drinks,
strike up a conversation, and then we’ll try to find out what Muller is up to
these days.”

“That’s your plan?”

“You’ve got a better one?”

“Not at the moment, but I could have
come up with one if I had had fair warning.”

Janet cast a dubious look at Laskin,
convinced that he was just showing off.

Laskin scratched his ear. “Before we go
in there, we’ve got to have a story to tell. Okay, I got it. We can’t say that
we’re married since we don’t have wedding rings. That would have been a nice
prop, had we had more time to plan this ...”

Inwardly Janet admitted that Laskin had
a point, but she was not about to admit it out loud. “Lots of married people
don’t wear wedding rings.”

“You mean lots of men don’t wear wedding
rings. But when it comes to formal occasions such as weddings, wives watch
their husbands like hawks, making sure that they have the gold band on their
fingers.”

“If you say so.”

“I know so. Weddings are prime dating
ground, for both men and women, and you know how territorial women can be.”

Janet did not necessarily agree, but at
the moment she was not particularly interested in hearing Laskin’s argument on
the matter, so she decided not to contradict.

“So, we are going to say that we are
boyfriend and girlfriend, and that we’ve been dating for a year—long enough for
the woman in the relationship to expect an engagement, but not too long for it
to be hopeless. This way you can whine to Muller’s date about how you can’t
wait for me to propose.”

“Good one,” Janet agreed.

“And I can gripe to Muller about not
wanting to pop the question.” Laskin patted his chin. “Do you know if Muller
smokes?”

“I don’t think so, but I’m not sure.
Why?”

“Because if we knew that he was a
smoker, I would have brought cigarettes. There’s hardly a more conducive
environment for men to share confidences than a cigarette break, especially
during a wedding. At the same time, there is nothing more annoying than someone
you’ve just met bumming a cigarette off of you, so regardless of Muller’s
preferences we are going to have to pass on this option.”

“I’m sorry. You are so much better at
this than I am.” Janet felt like an amateur. Clearly, she had been too busy
obsessing over her hatred for Alex and her unfortunate attraction to Dennis
instead of focusing on nailing Muller.

“It’s all right, Janet. The last few
weeks haven’t exactly been a walk in the park for any of us. I didn’t mean to
make you feel bad. I was just letting off steam, but now is not the time to do
that. We’ve got to get our game on. So, we’ve been dating for a year. I’m in information
technology and you’re a teacher. How does that sound?”

“Sounds good, Peter.” Janet paused.
Laskin did have a good head on his shoulders. “I’m glad that you’re going to be
my partner on this.”

“I’m no Dennis Walker, but I’ll do my
best.” Laskin lowered his eyes. “Sorry, that slipped.”

“That’s all right, partner. Now let’s go
get that son of a bitch Muller.”

Janet followed Laskin to their table.
Her breath quickened when she saw that David Muller and his date were already
seated. “Excuse us.” Laskin grabbed Janet’s hand as he maneuvered to their
seats, which were on Muller’s right hand side.

“Hi there,” Laskin beamed, quickly
picking up the placement cards and sliding them into his pocket. “John Carry.
Pleased to make your acquaintance. And this is my girlfriend, Elizabeth
Simmons.”

Janet attempted to mask her surprise
with a cough: they had not discussed aliases. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Muller looked at them with open
indifference. “David Muller. The pleasure is all mine, I’m sure.” Then, with a
quick glance at his date, he added, “And this is my girlfriend, Aileen
Finnegan.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Aileen,” Laskin
said.

“Wasn’t it just a wonderful ceremony?”
Aileen gushed.

“Indeed,” Laskin confirmed. “It’s a good
thing that Elizabeth is the maid of honor. Had she been sitting next to me
instead of standing by the altar, she would have seen me shed a manly tear or
two. Oh, well, I guess I gave myself away now.”